Reversed Polarity
by Rydia Erdrick Landale
Summary: Only ONE hero could save St. Canard High...and that hero's name was...MEGAVOLT?
1. Transdimensional Homesick Blues

  
  


**"Reversed Polarity"**   
  
A Darkwing Duck fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka "Captain Chaotica!!")   
  
**Chapter One: "Transdimensional Homesick Blues"**   
  


Herman the mail-carrier looked nervously up and down the street as he began his morning route. It was never safe, here in St. Canard. Oh, sure, things were better now since Darkwing Duck's brief visit last year--the electricity was back on, the water had been made drinkable, and the plants were growing again--but one year's worth of repairs could not hide or cover up 20 years' worth of destruction and evil--the city still looked like what it was--a burned out, ruined husk. The buildings were barely kept from falling over by leaning against each other, the road was full of potholes, and the sidewalks almost devoid of people. Of course, that itself wasn't that unusual at this early hour, but later on in the day, it would still be more or less the same, Herman knew. The people stayed indoors as much as possible out of fear. After all, you never knew WHEN Lord Nega--the scrawny young crane caught himself--just Negaduck was going to return. Sure, the Friendly Four were protecting the city now, but old habits were hard to break...  
But the street seemed to be fairly safe at the moment--decrepit, but safe--so the messenger set off on his rounds. _Neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night, yada yada but the danger of crime is something else altogether_, thought Herman wryly.  
It was, as always, a boring job, but the spring weather was nice, and the scenery rushing past was enough to keep him distracted. Cheerfully whistling as he rode his bicycle down Avian Way towards the downtown area, Herman continued on his route.  
  
Gosalyn Waddlemeyer was up early that morning, as she wanted to make sure the house was all perfect for her four guardians. _They work so hard_, she thought, as she cheerfully scrubbed the top of the sink, her red ringlets bouncing about her shoulders. _They deserve a nice home to live in. Maybe I'll cook breakfast today--I'm SURE I won't set the kitchen on fire this time--and--_ Her train of thought was momentarily broken by a sound from near the front doorway--the morning mail had just arrived. Gosalyn left off cleaning and skipped over to the door, curious, but somebody else had already gotten there first.  
One of the Friendly Four, Megavolt, had come downstairs and was yawning hugely. He was wearing his traditional yellow jumpsuit, gloves, and boots, all in rubber--as he HAD to, in order to keep himself from accidentally damaging things and people all the time--but since it was early and he wasn't yet ready for the day, his customary battery, goggles, plug-shaped helmet, giant socket, and extension cord hadn't yet been put on. The mutant superhero picked up the mail in a big clump and started going through it. One might think it'd be difficult to handle pieces of paper while wearing rubber gloves, but Megavolt had a lot of practice.  
"Bill, bill, bill, junk mail, junk mail--oh wait, this must be for Reggie," said Megavolt, putting aside a letter from the Save Our Trees Foundation. He turned around as Gosalyn came up behind him. "Where is Reg anyway? Is he up yet?" he asked.  
Gosalyn went back into the kitchen and peeked out the window. "Still outside, soaking up the dew," she reported, as her eyes picked out the mutant plant-duck in the back yard. The sun hadn't quite risen yet, so he was somewhat difficult to see against the green grass of the lawn, as he had his roots planted in the ground and was not moving at all. If you didn't know what to look for, you'd mistake him for a small tree. "We should let him wake up when he's ready; I think darkness makes plants sleepy, you know..."  
Megavolt nodded, rubbed the sleep from his own eyes, and continued through the stack of letters. "More bills, MORE junk mail, and...hmm? What's this?" He grabbed one letter excitedly and started ripping it open. Gosalyn stood on tip-toes behind him trying to see what it was, but there was no chance of her possibly seeing over his shoulder. Fortunately, she didn't have to, because he started reading the letter aloud.  
"Dear Elmo Sputterspark," the letter began. "We are sending you this letter as a former alumnus of St. Canard High, to cordially invite you to our 20-year reunion. Come, join us for a night of remembrance, meet old friends you thought you'd never see again, and perhaps a few new faces as well. We sincerely hope to see you there.  
(Signed), The St. Canard High School Student Council.  
P.S. Duckburg High's principal has most graciously allowed us to hold our reunion there, as St. Canard High no longer exists. Be aware of the change in address."   
Megavolt put the letter down, staring at it in amazement. "My high school reunion!" he exclaimed. "Oh, boy! I haven't seen my schoolmates in 20 years! I can't wait to see all those people again! All those people...who...always made fun of me, said my experiments were crazy, called me a freak..." he trailed off, uncertain. "Wait a minute, where was I originally going with this?"  
Gosalyn had other matters on her mind, though. "The 20-year reunion? But if you like reunions so much, why didn't you go to the 10-year one? And what's this about St. Canard High not existing...?"  
Megavolt, meanwhile, had wandered into the kitchen looking for the coffee and was somewhat distracted. "There was no 10-year reunion; Negaduck was fully in charge back then and nobody would have DARED send out invitations telling the exact address of a gathering--Negaduck LOVES it whenever there's a lot of people in one place. It makes violence more convenient." Having found the coffee filters, he placed one inside the Mr. Java and then looked for the can of grounds. "I think Negaduck hadn't found out about the portal to the Otherworld yet, so he was around here 100% of the time, you see. Life was more dangerous back then than you can remember it being. Even the four of us, with our powers, didn't dare stir from our homes more often than we absolutely needed to, for food and other supplies..." He shook his head. "What turned out to be one of the other St. Canard's worst problems has become sort of a bonus for us--although I know I shouldn't say such mean things."  
"But what's this about the high school not existing?" asked Gosalyn again, in that persistent way that little kids have. "And who is Elmo Sputterspark? I thought your name was Megavolt! Maybe they sent the letter to the wrong house...?"  
Megavolt loaded some coffee grounds into the Mr. Java, turned the machine on with a short zap from his finger rather than plugging it in, and turned to face Gosalyn directly. "No, I am--was--Elmo Sputterspark," he said, a kind of sad tone in his voice. "And I can tell you what happened to the school. After all..." he sighed. "I was there that night..."  
  
Herman had reached the last letter in his bag and pulled it out, gratefully, thinking that now he could go home and get some breakfast. But then his eyes noticed the address on the envelope...and he stopped short, braking so fast his bike almost flipped over. "WHAT the...?" he said to himself in disbelief, reading the address again to make sure he wasn't seeing things.  
_Negaduck  
1136 Audobon Bay Road, Apartment 3-C  
St. Canard, (Normalverse), Calisota, U.S.A._  
"What?! Normalverse?" Herman scratched his head, trying to figure out what that meant. To him, the Negaverse had always been the "normal" one...after all, he'd grown up here. Only those denizens of the Negaverse who had heard of the other would even consider calling their OWN universe "opposite". "They want me to deliver a letter to an alternate universe? Oh, come on! I mean, I know we're supposed to be able to deliver our letters no matter what, but this is RIDICULOUS!"  
He was about to throw the letter away as a bad joke and go home--after all, it was the last one in his sack--but stopped, thinking. If this was serious, it'd sure be an interesting challenge...  
Herman made up his mind and turned his bicycle towards the one place in St. Canard where might be found a person who could help him with such a bizzarre request--  
McCawber Enterprises, Limited.  
  
Lightning flashed out of a clear blue sky as, against his better judgement, Herman rode up to the gates of the impressive-looking office building. He jumped, jerking so hard on the handlebars that he nearly caused himself to crash into a tree, but got the bike back under control again. _Calm yourself, buddy..._ muttered the postal worker under his breath, as he parked his bike under the tree and walked nervously towards the gates. _You've heard the stories about this place, this is perfectly normal, it's SUPPOSED to do that..._  
He raised his hand to rap on the metal bars of the gate--ready to flinch backwards at any moment should lightning strike again--but this was made uncessary as a black-armoured cyborg duck with spikes on its shoulder-plates came rolling up to him on one tire. "WHAT is your business here, Citizen?" sneered a melodramatic voice with a slight trace of British accent. "State your purpose here at McCawber Enterprises, or--" a huge arsenal of weapons popped out of various hatches on the metallic suit--"FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!!"  
"YIKES!" Herman leapt backwards in fear, but before the cyborg creature could open fire, a soft female voice sounded from behind him.  
"Now, now, Metalladuck, I hired you for more...precise violence this week, not as a mere bouncer," said a tall, slender duck woman from the main doorway of the office building. She glided over to the gates in a strange way that made it almost look as if she was floating, even though Herman could see her high-heel-clad feet, perfectly normal... "I am so sorry, this was never meant to happen." she addressed Herman. "Good morning, I am Morgana McCawber, owner and C.E.O. of McCawber Enterprises, Inc. And you are...?"  
"Herk--" Herman cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm nobody important, just a mailman, but--"  
Morgana tossed her shoulder-length, silver-streaked black hair back and stood up, giving the messenger a cold look. "I have all MY mail delivered by a special service. Good day." Then she turned to walk back into the building, as if the messenger no longer existed.  
"Wait!" said Herman, feeling stupider and stupider about his choice to come here as he did so. _But I've come this far, I can't give up now..._ "I've...I've got a favour to ask of you! It has to do with magic!"  
THAT got her attention. "Magic?" said Morgana, striding back over towards him at an unnervingly fast pace. "Why, whatever gave you the idea that I have anything to do with magic? I am a perfectly ordinary--although, of course, very very successful--businesswoman." She started gently steering Herman towards the building as she spoke, however, the gates opening by themselves. Herman didn't notice--he was too freaked out by the fact that Metalladuck, the legendary mechanical supervillian of Duckburg, was following RIGHT behind him...with the weapons out again. "I don't know WHERE all these ugly rumours about my having 'supernatural help' to build my empire came from, I really don't..." Morgana continued on, as she kept steering Herman where she wanted him to go.  
Finally, they reached a small meeting room inside the building. There were no lights or light-switches in evidence--and no windows either--but Morgana pointed her finger at the door, shutting it, then snapped her fingers and made a glowing blue ball of light appear. It floated to a point roughly in the very middle of the room and then stopped, hanging in the air. "We're alone now," she snapped, leaning across the table towards the bewildered Herman. "TALK."  
"Um, well, you see, I, er, I have this letter that says it's from the, you know, the Other universe, and, I was just thinking, maybe, you know, with what they say you can do with your magic, maybe...you could...?"  
"Open a portal to the Otherworld?" Ms. McCawber leaned back in the leather office chair and steepled her fingers, looking at the young mail-bird through hooded green eyes. "Hmm. Normally I would've kicked you right out or let Metalladuck here do what he wanted to you, but I practically NEVER get requests about magic from normals..."  
Herman looked around the room nervously. It looked like a perfectly ordinary conference room--save the lack of lights and windows--but that floating ball of blue light wasn't showing the _whole_ room, and he couldn't shake the feeling that Something...or perhaps somethingS...were watching him from the shadows. "So, uh...will you do it?"  
"What's in it for ME?" she countered. When Herman just opened his mouth and stared at her, trying to work out how much of his meager savings he'd be able to spare, she went on, "I am a businesswoman, Mr. Herman Spoonbill. Whatever else you may have heard about me--the crime rackets, the hostile takeovers, the sudden...disappearances of my main competitors, my supernatural connections and other, even less savoury rumours...I am a businesswoman. First and foremost. So I ask again: What's in it for me?"  
"Um...um...um..." Herman thought frantically. "Um..." _Businesswoman..._ he thought. _Wait, that's it!_ "If you open a portal to the Otherworld," he said aloud, "You'll have a whole other universe's worth of business opportunities to explore!"  
Morgana blinked, surprised. "Fascinating." she said as calmly as if she hadn't just heard the best idea of the decade. "There may be hope for you yet. Have you considered working for MY organisation, Mr. Spoonbill?"  
_Wait, how did she know my name?_ Herman thought, finally noticing. "Um, not really, but well, I mean, the pay isn't very good working for the Post Office, so..."  
"You may just want to consider it." said Ms. McCawber, standing up and smoothing out an imperceptible wrinkle in her conservative dark blue blazer. "For now, I'll only be opening a small portal--not big enough to send a person through, just the letter itself. Magic ingredients are so expensive, you see, and I'd hate to waste a powerful spell before things have been properly prepared for my new business ventures..."  
"So, do we have to go into your dungeon to do the spell?" asked Herman, now starting to get into the spirit of things.  
"Dungeon?" laughed Morgana. "Oh, what old-fashioned notions you have. This is the '90s, my dear boy. A MODERN witch wouldn't even dream of lurking in dungeons or stirring smelly bubbling cauldrons all day."  
She pushed a button under the table and part of it flipped over, revealing a computer keyboard--black, with arcane runes in silver on the keys rather than normal letters, numbers, and symbols. Morgana tapped on it for a bit, causing other panels to open up in the table as she did so. Bowls of mysterious ingredients--ingredients that Herman frankly didn't want to KNOW about--popped out of those panels and mechanical arms put precise amounts of said ingredients into a circle-shaped depression next to the computer panel. She pushed some more buttons, and the arms stirred and mashed up the ingredients into a gloppy grey gook. "And 10 cc's of monkey drool," she said to herself, and tapped one last button. The last ingredient was added, and, with a bang, the potion gave off a small mushroom-cloud of bright pink steam. "Place the letter here, boy." she indicated the potion.  
Herman put the letter in the built-in bowl, then yanked his hand out of range, afraid of what might happen if he was too near the spell.  
Morgana typed in a few more keystrokes. There was a great flash of light, the potion started glowing, then smoke streaked with spiral stripes of dark blue and vibrant yellow began to climb out of the bowl in a column, seeming almost solid, and faint ghosts of voices floated through the room, just on the edge of hearing. The letter floated up on this smoke, being carried gently around inside it as if in a slow-motion tornado, and when the smoke reached the ceiling of the room, it and the letter simply...disappeared.  
Morgana gestured, and the table was back to normal as if nothing had ever happened. "There. That should do it. I programmed in a bit of a time-spin on the spell, too, so it'll arrive earlier in the day over there. It wouldn't do for the regular mail-carrier in the Other St. Canard to see the letter just appear, after all."  
"Well, uh, thanks, really, so glad you could help me out, and if you don't mind, I'll be going now, heh, busy day, gotta get back to it--" Herman was cut short by a machine-gun rifle being pressed firmly against his long beak.  
"No, I'm afraid you won't be going ANYwhere..." said Ms. McCawber, gliding up behind him, as Metalladuck blocked the doorway, weapons out. "When I offered you a position in my company...that WASN'T a request." She gestured, and the walls all suddenly sprouted laser canons. "You CAN'T leave here now...you know too much."  
Herman gulped and backed away a step from Metalladuck. "Well, in that case...what kind of dental plan does your company offer?"  
  
It was an early April morning in St. Canard--that special time between night and dawn, when the people of the night have gone to bed but the people of the day haven't quite started to wake up yet. The city streets were still mostly clean and quiet, the shining skyscrapers cloaked in pale grey shadows. Winter hadn't quite packed up its bags and left yet, so it was a bit chilly, but otherwise very pleasant.  
For most people, that is. The occupant of a small, run-down apartment near the St. Canard docks, however, was in a foul mood and not about to let some wimpy nice morning ruin it. An axe thudded into the opposite wall and stuck there, its handle quivering, as the thrower wandered over to inspect his handiwork. A black-masked duck's face was reflected in the blade. "Hmm, six inches in, not bad," mused Negaduck, looking at how deep the blade had gone into the wall. "Not my best work, but not bad."  
He stood up and stretched--but didn't yawn, as he wasn't just waking up; he had been awake all night, as usual. "Man, I gotta think of something really destructive to do today, or else..." snarled the yellow-jacketed supervillian, as he stomped around the apartment, pausing briefly to admire each of the weapons in his impressive arsenal as he did so. "But first, I think I'll go steal some breakfast from that restaurant down the street and hel-LO, what's this?" He bent down to pick up an envelope that had just suddenly appeared on the floor. _That's stupid talk,_ thought Negaduck to himself. _Things don't just APPEAR. It must've been slipped under the door sometime during the night. But WHO could know about my latest hideout...?_ All these thoughts were put on hold, however, as he opened the envelope and began to read the letter inside.  
  
"So, what happened?" asked Gosalyn, tugging on the sleeve of Megavolt's jumpsuit. "Come on, we have time. I'd love to hear your old stories. You guys never talk about your pasts..."  
"Maybe it's because we're not that proud of them." said Megavolt, looking out the window rather than meeting Gosalyn's eyes.  
Gosalyn just stood there and gave him a big sad "puppy-dog-eyes" look. He ignored it as long as he could, but eventually gave in. "Okay, fine, I'll tell you the story..."  
"What story is that?" came a chipper voice from the front door. Megavolt turned around--and groaned. Quackerjack stood in the doorway, holding a box. _He's ENTIRELY too cheerful for this early_ thought the electrified rat, irritably. _Morning people should be OUTLAWED._ "Well, since you're here, you might as well hear it too," he sighed.  
"Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt," said Quackerjack, stepping forwards and tousling Gosalyn's hair with his free hand. "But I was downtown buying some new parts for my latest toy and thought I'd get a box of doughnuts for all of us--well, for all of us who NEED to eat, that is." Megavolt reached into the box and grabbed the one lemon-filled doughnut--his favourite kind. Gosalyn politely waited until the box was offered to her, then took a chocolate one and started to nibble at it in a dainty fashion. "But since you mentioned a story, let's hear it. I always do like a little entertainment with my meals!" Giggling, the jester-duck set the box down on the kitchen counter and turned handsprings over to the living room sofa.  
Megavolt leaned against a wall--he preferred to stand rather than sit, most of the time--and began. "Well..."  
  
TWENTY YEARS EARLIER...  
  
Elmo Sputterspark barely looked where he was going as he maneuvered his way through the halls of St. Canard High between classes--he was too absorbed in the notes for his latest science experiment. There was a loud THUD behind him, and the long-haired rat boy turned to look, vaguely interested.  
"What's the matter, Drake the Dweeb, too chicken to fight back?" sneered the voice of Moe Bernard, one of the school's many bullies, as his cronies flapped their arms and squawked behind him. Drake slid down the locker he had just been slammed into, and slid slowly to the floor.  
The hot-tempered young duck leapt to his feet almost immediately, however, and grabbed the lead bully's collar, yanking him down to his own face-level. "Get out of my way," he snarled in a surprisingly deep, gravelly voice, "or else I'll--"  
"You'll WHAT, dweeb?" laughed Moe, easily freeing himself. He grabbed Drake by one bell-bottomed leg and hauled him into the air, dangling the small duck boy upside-down in the air. His cronies left off their "chicken" impersonations and burst out into hysterical sniggers.  
"Let me down you...you...YOU!!" shrieked Drake, getting angrier and angrier.  
"That's enough, Bernard." came a voice behind them, and Moe--still holding Drake in the air--turned around to see the large figure of Hamm String, captain of the football team. Prina Lott, the hall monitor, stood just to the side of him. "Or do you want me to cut you from the team?"  
"Er, no sir, Hamm, sir," babbled Moe nervously. Football was the only thing in school the neanderthal-like dog boy was good at and he was hoping to get into college on a sports scholarship, so he couldn't take his chances. "I'll just put him down, now--" he dropped Drake on his head ("Ow!") "and be getting to my next class..."  
Hamm reached down to help Drake to his feet. "You all right?" asked Prina, concerned.  
"GET your lousy paws offa me!" snarled Drake, picking up his books from where they had scattered as he stood up. "I don't need your condescending looks; I don't need your pity! I KNOW you think the same of me as everybody else here does--'Drake the Dweeb', the biggest loser of St. Canard High! 'It's okay to kick Drake around, he's weak, he won't be able to do anything!' Well SOMEday, someday soon, I'm gonna start kicking BACK! You all just wait and see!" He shook his fist as he stomped away.  
"I was just trying to help..." said Hamm, in an injured tone.  
Elmo turned back to his notes and continued on his way. Such things were of no interest to him. The weak were always being bullied--it was the way of things. Natural selection, and all that. He, however, had more important matters to think about.  
Prina Lott whispered to her boyfriend as Elmo walked by, evidently under the impression that she could not be heard. "He's always scared me, that one. He's so creepy...like some mad scientist from a movie or something."  
Hamm String nodded. Everyone had always been a little afraid of Elmo Sputterspark. Technically he was the Science Nerd and should have been fair game for the bullies, too, but...there was just something about him that made people back off. A coldness...no, that wasn't it--more like...disinterest. As if he barely even noticed your existence, and when he did look at you, it was like he was looking down through a microscope--as if he considered other people to be only vaguely interesting as cases to study, nothing more. And then there were the rumours about what he got up into the science lab, after hours...  
"Well, let's talk about more cheerful things, Hamm," said the auburn-haired girl nervously, as she and the large pig-boy walked down the hallway together. "Like, when you're going to pick me up for the prom tonight?"  
  
Elmo Sputterspark looked up at the clock as he entered the science lab later that afternoon. 4:00 pm. Good. School had let out a full hour ago, so nobody should be here anymore--he would be able to do his latest experiment in total privacy. It wouldn't do for the public to find out about THIS new breakthrough...at least, not until it was already too late...  
As Elmo removed the secret panel in the science lab's floor and started to pull out the exotic equipment needed for the project, he reflected bitterly over the life that had brought him to this point.  
Growing up in the Negaverse was hard, even for a normal person. After all, it was not a nice place. Crime was rampant, the police were too scared to do much of anything, and in the schools, bullying wasn't against the rules; it was the way of life. (Or, rather, it technically WAS against the rules, but the teachers were too afraid of the bullies to do anything.)  
But Elmo had never been normal. All his life he had been much smarter than the average person, and because of that, a bit...different. Always more interested in whatever invention he was working on than what was going on around him, Sputterspark--derisively called "Sparky" by the few kids who spoke to him at all--had always been seen as a weirdo, a freak, a nerd...and was teased and beaten up accordingly because of it. None of his classmates ever defended him, he had nobody to talk to...because he had no friends. He was too busy with his science projects, and too shy, to have ever gotten around to making any friends. His parents loved him and were supportive of his experiments--they even got him high-tech gadgets for his birthdays sometimes (helped a good bit by the fact that his mother was a physicist at the university and was allowed to take the less-succesful machines home--which Elmo then improved into working ones, of course) but they couldn't protect their little boy all the time...  
After being slammed in the head with a baseball bat during gym one day, Elmo came to a decision, as he was lying there in his hospital bed--if his fellow students thought he was a weirdo, then he was going to BE a weirdo. He was going to be the freakiest weirdo they had ever seen!  
And so, in 5th grade, he started cultivating an image for himself as a "mad scientist"--giggling weirdly, wearing a lab coat whenever he thought he could get away with it, looking at people in a really creepy way--and it worked, in a way. He still had no friends, was still all alone...but the kids who would have been bullying him backed off. And nobody ever called him "Sparky" anymore. In fact, nobody called him much of anything...  
By now, in his senior year of high school, the 17-year-old genius had been playing this role for so long he'd almost FORGOTTEN who he really was. He had practically become the sinister mad scientist he was pretending to be. But inside, the real Elmo Sputterspark was still lonely and hurting. Inside, he still craved the acceptance he could never have--however, he was convinced that he could never have friends; he was just too "different". This made him decide him to go for...REVENGE. If he couldn't have friendship, at least he could have attention.  
So, having been driven to the point of desperation...thinking that he had nothing left to lose...the young rat-boy tossed his ponytail over his shoulder and began to assemble the machine that would "show them all".  
  
"Whoah, whoah, whoah, time out!" said Gosalyn, putting her hands together in a "T"-shape. "You mean you used to be a VILLIAN? How awful!" She backed away from Megavolt, towards the kitchen sink. Water began flowing out of the faucet on its own, without her turning the handle...and then formed into the approximate shape of a blue, watery dog, which slid onto the floor. "GAH! Licky, you startled me!" said Gosalyn, leaping backwards.  
"Let him finish telling the story, Gosalyn," said the Liquidator in his strange bubbly voice. "After all--inquiring minds want to know!"  
Megavolt took his cup of coffee out of the Mr. Java. "YOW! that's strong. Anyway," he continued, making a face as he took another sip, "I wasn't a very nice person back then, no. But all that changed, that fateful day in June..."  
  
Elmo looked around the room at the huge tangle of wires and large items of handmade equipment, satisfied. It was all set up, or nearly so. Soon, he would be able to--the young scientist was distracted by the sound of voices in the corridor outside. _Voices?_ thought Elmo, panicked. _Nonono, I can't have people coming in here NOW...!_  
"Hamm, it's NOT that important," came the unmistakeable whine of Prina Lott, as she and her boyfriend both opened the door of the science lab without knocking. "Let's just go home; the prom's in only a few hours..."  
"Hey, it's not my fault practice ran late today," shrugged the large pig boy, as he made his way into the room, stepping carefully to avoid all the wires. "But the team is doing really well lately, you know, and I don't want to discourage them...I'll just get my 'Captain Electron' comic book that I left in here and--" He finally looked up. "Say, what's WITH all this weird stuff, anyway?"  
Prina caught sight of Elmo, standing at the back of the room where he hoped he wouldn't be seen. "Sputterspark!" she gasped. "Er, this is...some extra credit assignment you've got set up here..."  
Hamm String picked up the comic book that had been left sitting on one of the desks, then absentmindedly put it down again as he looked around the room. "Say, yeah." The jock walked over to the nerd, impressed. "Wow, pretty cool. So, what is it, exactly?"  
Elmo considered just brushing them off, but then decided to stay in character. _If I'm going to be a mad scientist, why not go for the old melodramatic cliches?_ "Well, I might as well tell you all the details of my scheme. After all, it's not as if you'll be GOING anywhere." He pushed a button, and the door slammed shut behind the two. He ignored their gasps of alarm and continued.  
"All the wires you see here are not my invention--they are merely meant to gather energy for it. They will drain electricity from everywhere within the school, and use it to charge this miniature dynamo. It's powering up now, even as we speak." He pointed to one of the devices on the floor. "Once that's done, I will flip this switch--" he indicated what looked like a perfectly ordinary light-switch, except that it was built low into the wall rather than where a light switch would normally be "--and it will feed the power into this antenna, once I get it in place that is." He pointed to a long, thin metal rod lying on the floor.  
"And then what?" said Prina, morbidly curious.  
"And THEN, the antenna will broadcast a special pulse all over St. Canard...and everybody currently touching, or near, anything electrical will get the SHOCK of their life! HAHAHAHA!!" Elmo burst out into an insane, high-pitched giggle. "Oh, sorry, that was a bit too cliche. I apologise--it just kind of slipped out."  
"WHAT?! But that's terrible!" exclaimed Prina, backing away.  
"I can't let you get away with this!" said Hamm String...and then stopped, embarrased. "Geez, did I just SAY that...?" he shook his head. "Never mind. I still have to try to stop you..." and he lunged towards the skinny rat-boy.  
"Hey! No! Stop! Get away from me!" shrieked Elmo. He struggled, but--being small and out of shape--he was no match for a 250-pound football player. Hamm looked around for something to tie the desperate science nerd up with...and his eyes lit on one of the many electrical cords strewn about the floor.  
"No! You can't! Not with that! The antenna isn't set up yet--the energy will just build up and have nowhere to go! It'll cause a feedback loop!" shrieked Elmo, but Hamm didn't listen as he tied the boy to the nearest handy object--the unattached antenna. "NO! PLEASE!! I'll shut it down, I promise! Just LET ME GO!!"  
"I'm sorry, but I can't." Hamm shook his head. Abruptly, the dynamo's engine got much louder, and the noise went up an octave in pitch. "You've gone crazy, Sputterspark. You're just too dangerous. I can't let you go free--you might try something like this again, someday."  
"Let's get out of here, Hamm!" quavered Prina, and they both rushed out the door. Luckily for them, Elmo hadn't thought to lock it.  
Inside the lab, things were getting stranger and stranger. The dynamo was going at a disturbingly fast rate, and all the pieces of paper from people's assignments started to float through the air...over to Elmo. The posters and charts came down off the walls as well, and soon after, every loose metal object in the room flew over to the metal antenna and stuck to it as well. Then the metal objects that WEREN'T loose--the screws that held the teacher's desk together started to unscrew themselves and flew through the air, as did the thumbtacks that had been holding the posters on the wall...the stapler (which had been INSIDE the teacher's desk)...all the paper clips... Elmo barely managed to duck his head out of the way of the sharper objects, but the others hit him. And stuck.  
"Oh, PLEASE, let the school's electrical system run out of power before the dynamo overloads and sends all the power BACK along these wires...let there be a loose wire, a bad connection, a burnt-out fuse somewhere in the system...PLEASE...?" whimpered the frightened young rat to himself. His hair was starting to stand on end, and an unpleasant burning, tingling sensation--as if fire ants were crawling on him--spread all over his body. Sparks started to fly off the dynamo, and soon, over everything in the room, crackling in large, bright arcs from object to object.  
_I'm going to die._ was Elmo's last conscious thought, before the dreaded feedback occurred, completely melting the rubber coating on the wires...and ALL the electricity of St. Canard High surged through him in one enourmous jolt.  
  
"Wow..." said Bushroot, who had come into the room about halfway through this tale. "How did you ever survive that?!" Quackerjack, the Liquidator and Gosalyn were all hanging on Megavolt's every word, too.  
"I'm not quite sure I did," said Megavolt, somberly. "After all, the me that woke up after that shock...wasn't the me from before..." He shook his head quickly, trying to clear the cobwebs. "But enough about me for now. Let's iris out to the next scene and let the OTHER main character of this story tell his piece."  
  



	2. Chapter Two: Only a Lad

  
  


**"Reversed Polarity"**   
  
A "Darkwing Duck" Fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!)   
  
**Chapter Two: "Only a Lad"**   
  


Negaduck opened the mysteriously-appearing letter and read its contents in disbelief. "A class reunion?!" he yelled aloud, roaring with laughter. "I destroyed the school, I destroyed it again every time they tried to rebuild it...and now, I can destroy Duckburg High as well! They must be REALLY desperate to get enough people to show up, if they invited ME!" He stuck the paper to the wall with a piece of tape, then threw an axe, a brace of throwing knives, a cleaver and, finally, shot about 30 bullets at it with "Betsy", his favourite machine gun.  
"Well, I was looking for something destructive to do...and here comes the perfect idea, right into my lap! Tonight I'll get to have the fun of destroying a school all over again! BWAHAHAHA! Ah, just like old times..." The homicidal maniac sat back in a beat-up old armchair as memory overtook him.  
  
TWENTY YEARS EARLIER (AGAIN)...  
  
Drake Mallard didn't have many friends and was generally disliked by the school population, thought of as a loser, a jerk, and a wimp--but he had always insisted, to himself and anybody else who would listen, that it wasn't really HIS fault--it was society's. To a certain extent, this was true. Growing up in the Negaverse hadn't been easy for "Drake the Dweeb", either...  
The long slide downhill started in grade school, when he was beat up often, because he was small and therefore just made for hurting. Drake was basically a decent kid--a bit cowardly, but decent--but he had a hot temper lurking underneath his whimpering scaredy-cat exterior, and it kept getting him into trouble. If only he had kept his anger under control more of the time, things would've gotten better by the time he was further along in school. He was, after all, an intelligent boy--good in science and shop classes especially, and fairly athletic. He could have made something decent of his life.  
But he was just too belligerent to know when he was beaten, too stubborn to know when to quit...and so the bullying continued. And got worse every year.  
Moody and irritable pretty much all the time by this point, Drake only rarely bothered to do his homework, barely talked to anyone, and scraped through his classes only by the skin of his teeth. His parents became angry and lectured him frequently, but he refused to listen. _They don't know what it's LIKE,_ he used to think, sulkily. _THEY had FRIENDS when they were in school. THEY were NORMAL._ And so, young Drake became thought of as a loser, a washout, a hopeless case, a lost cause--by EVERYBODY. Including his own parents.  
Including himself.  
That was what drove him to the brink of insanity, what made his anger so very intense--the fact that he considered HIMSELF to be a loser. He was deeply ashamed of himself, and the shame ate him up inside, causing him to become the jerk that everybody thought he was. Instead of fighting back against his bad image, he just gave up, stopped even trying anymore. If a foul-tempered creep who slacks off at everything was what they wanted, then that's what they would get.  
One day, when he was a freshman in high school, Drake made his first contact with the criminal underground of St. Canard--not hard to do, as the criminals were basically in charge and made no attempt to hide themselves. Why should they? The police were totally inept, after all. He managed to buy some black-market hand-grenades with his saved-up allowance and took them home, intending to blow up the stadium during the school's next football game--but had an attack of conscience--or "chickened out", as his current-day self would put it--and hid the grenades in a box in the basement of his house, instead.  
Over the years, there were many times when he got mad enough to want to blow something up, and went and bought some more weaponry from the black-market shops...but every time, he just couldn't go through with it. By his senior year in high school, he had quite the arsenal built up.  
"And TONIGHT'S the time to use it!" snarled the 17-year-old Drake Mallard, as he stormed around his bedroom. The walls were painted black just because it annoyed his mom, adorned with posters of his favourite hard rock bands, and the floor was half-covered with old pizza boxes, but he didn't care. "Tonight, at the prom, when everybody will be having a great old time--everybody except ME that is--dancing slowly to cheesy pop songs, looking into each other's eyes, being all romantic and lovey-duvey in their fanciest clothes...THAT'S when I'll strike! When they'll least expect it! BWAHAHAHAHA!!"  
Drake tromped into the basement and dragged the box of weaponry out from its hiding place behind old mattresses that the family had never gotten around to throwing out, panting as he did so, as the box was quite heavy. He started to strap a bandolier of bullets around himself...and stopped, thinking. "But of course, I'm just Drake the Dweeb, they probably won't take ME seriously, even if I DO show up with weapons blazing." His eye fell upon a piece of black cloth sticking out of another box, and he dropped the bandolier and went over to it. He tugged on the cloth, pulling more of it out--it was a black cape with a deep maroon lining. Drake then opened the box and discovered that it was full of old Halloween costumes. Interesting...  
"Maybe I don't have to be Drake the Dweeb tonight. Maybe tonight, the school will be blown up by..." and his voice dropped to a truly chilling growl, "someone else..."  
  
"I don't remember much of what happened right after I first woke up," said Megavolt, coming back to his own tale, "in fact, that's a big part of the problem--that I couldn't remember."  
"Couldn't remember what?" questioned the Liquidator.  
"Much of anything." responded Megavolt. He rinsed the empty coffee cup out in the sink. "Parts of it gradually came back to me later on, over the years, but...when I first woke up after that massive shock--there wasn't much of 'me' left..."  
  
_Darkness.  
Fractured images.  
Heat.  
Pain.  
Light..._  
Elmo Sputterspark clawed his way back to consciousness with much difficulty. It would have been easier to stay under forever...but the annoying tingling sensation in his hands and feet, which had fallen asleep due to the cable tied tightly around them, wouldn't leave him alone. The rat-boy's eyes fluttered open and he sat up, dizzily, in what was left of the science lab. Which...wasn't much. Most of the desks were incinerated into ashes or at the very least, smashed into pieces of kindling, there were blackened, twisted hunks of metal (whose original purpose it was impossible to tell) strewn about the room, and shattered glass from all the broken beakers and test tubes all over the floor. The distinctive smell of scorched carpet filled the air, and a giant hole in the wall was still smoking around the edges. The classroom had definitely seen better days.  
"Where am I?" said Elmo, totally dazed. His memory was all foggy, it was hard to think. "How did I get here?" And then, finally: "WHO am I?"  
Frightened, the young rat searched desperately back in his memory, thinking to himself, _Of COURSE I know my own name, I mean, amnesia like that only happens in cheesy soap-operas, ha ha, I'm just a little confused at the moment, it'll pass..._  
It didn't. Try as he might, he just couldn't remember his own name, or...much of anything else. Panicked by now, he kept thinking harder, trying to remember. But no...not only could he not remember his name, he couldn't remember his family, where he lived, or anything of his past life! He vaguely remembered being different from others somehow...but that was it.  
"Why am I tied up?" he said aloud, in alarm, as he finally noticed the electrical cable tied around himself. "Oh, no! Maybe I'm a dangerous lunatic! I could be ANYbody, after all! Well, I can't find out anything lying here...I have to get loose."  
Elmo struggled as hard as he could, but it was no use--whoever had tied these things around him had known what they were doing. "Oh, come on!" he said, irritably, as he struggled one last time. "There's nobody else around to help me, I could be here for days for all I know! I HAVE to get loose!"  
And suddenly, to his amazement, the wires unwound themselves and flew across the room.  
"WHOAH!" said Elmo, staring at the wires as he stood up and brushed a few small metal objects off his clothes. "How did I DO that?" He put a hand to his head in thought, and felt...wait, his hair was poofy. He had a vague recollection of it being long and straight... He walked over to the nearest metal object that was still unburned/melted enough to have a reflective surface, and looked into it. Sure enough, the huge blast of electricity (which he DID remember--after all, it'd be hard to forget something like THAT) had somehow curled his hair, giving him a rather large Afro...but he had other things to worry about besides his appearance right now...like the fact that his clothes were on fire!  
Quickly, Elmo threw himself to the ground and rolled back and forth to put out the flames. _That's odd_, he wondered. _How'd THAT happen? This is all very peculiar..._  
He leaned against one of the metal objects...and leapt backwards in alarm as a bright arc of electricity suddenly leapt from him to the metal! "Yeesh, how much static did I build up for THAT to happen...?" he wondered. "But...it didn't hurt..."  
Elmo leaned against the wall to collect his thoughts, lifting one hand to scratch his head, as that always helped him think--and a bolt of electricity arced out of his raised fingers to hit the light fixture in the ceiling. "WHAT the?!" He looked at his hand, suddenly frightened of his own body. "I...I seem to have the power to store electricity in myself like a battery, and..." he picked a piece of wreckage across the room for target practice, pointed his finger at it and the object completely disentegrated. "...release it at will...and maybe other abilities, too?"  
He concentrated on the cable that had been used to tie him up, seeing if he could make it move as before, or had that been a fluke? Sure enough, the conducting copper wire responded to a combination of the electricity inside Elmo's body and his thoughts (_telekinesis?_ he wondered) and snaked gracefully through the air. Now completely freaked out, Elmo raised his head and cried out, "What AM I?!"  
Of course, there was no answer.  
His eyes fell on one of the objects in the room that was still more or less intact--a comic book. He picked it up and vaguely started to read. "I get it..." murmured Elmo to himself, as he paged through the book. "I have superpowers, so I must be...a superHERO! Like this 'Captain Electron' character! Yes! That's it! And I must've been tied up here by an evil supervillian--YIKES!" He paused to throw the merrily blazing comic book on the floor and stomp on it.  
"I don't know what I WAS, but that doesn't matter! What matters is how you live your life from now on, and from now on, MY life is going to be spent--" here Elmo struck a heroic pose, with his hand over his chest--"defending the innocent from the forces of evil!" He relaxed into a more normal pose. "Now, where's a good place to start defending..."  
Elmo walked out into the corridor of the school as he thought, and saw that there were colourful decorations everywhere. "What's this?" he wondered. "Some kind of party going on here?" He looked around for clues, and finally noticed one of the posters for the prom. "Oh, yes! The prom! I remember something now! Yes...that's tonight, isn't it?" He looked at the nearest clock. It said 4:30 pm, but that meant nothing, as all the electricity in the school had been drained out by the experiment--he could've been unconscious for hours, for all he knew. Something else was nagging at the back of his brain, too, some recent memory...  
"Wait!" he snapped his fingers, causing sparks to fly from them, "Didn't Drake Mallard say something about how soon, he was going to get everybody back, earlier today...? And if he's serious about that, then the perfect place for him to attack will be...at the prom! But I, Electron, will be there to foil his evil schemes--YOWEE!"  
Elmo looked down at his clothes, which were now on fire again from when he had gestured with his hand on his chest. He stopped, dropped, and rolled--again--then stood up. It seemed he didn't have much control over the huge amount of electricity inside his body yet--it leaked out continuously, flared up on its own every time he felt a strong emotion--and quite frankly, gave him the heebie-jeebies. "But before the forces of good can thwart the forces of evil, they'll need some new clothes." _Rubber ones, preferably..._  
  
"Drake, what are you doing down there?" came Mrs. Mallard's voice from up the basement stairs.  
Drake Mallard quickly threw a bright yellow tuxedo blazer on over the bandolier of bullets he was wearing, stuffed the grenades in his pockets, and tossed the black, maroon-lined cape over the Tommy-gun, rifles, chainsaw, and bombs. "Just taking some old junk out of the basement, Mom." he called back.  
"Good--that place could do with a little cleaning up, anyway." responded Mrs. Mallard, and went back to watching her favourite game show--having no idea that, later on that night, her son was to become a wanted criminal.  
  
"No, not Electron, that's no good," murmured Elmo to himself as he walked through the halls of the school. A search of the premises had helped him somewhat--he was now wearing a pair of purple-tinted goggles that he'd found in the Shop class (to protect his eyes from all the bright sparks he was likely to give off from now on), and a pair of elbow-length, blue-green rubber gloves from the cupboard in the Home Ec. room. He still needed rubber clothes for his body, as what was left of his original outfit was now starting to smoulder without his touching it with ungloved hands, but he had no idea where to find something so bizzarre... "I can't just copy an existing superhero's name, I need my OWN name. Something to do with electricity, still, though...hmmm..."  
He paused outside a door he didn't recognise and, curious, tried it. Locked. "Well, I hate to cause destruction like this, but--" he zapped the doors and they fell into dust. He walked through the door and down a stairwell into what turned out to be the school's fallout shelter. It hadn't been used much since the Red Scare of the '50s, so the door had been locked to keep the more degenerate type of students from running off and hiding in it.  
Elmo searched idly through the old supplies, not expecting to find anything of interest. "New name..." he went back to his original train of thought as he searched. "Spark? Zap? Bolt? Nah, I don't really like any of those...hey, what's this?" He pulled out a bright yellow radiation suit, complete with helmet. For some reason, the entire thing was made of rubber--because it was better at blocking harmful things in general, he supposed. "Hmm, THIS is promising..."  
Curiously, he tried the body part of the suit on, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it fit him perfectly--although it was a bit more form-fitting than you'd expect an environmental suit to be. "Must've been a prototype design. No wonder it was stored down here--nobody'd WANT it. And boy, talk about uncomfortable." He stood up, pulled at the jumpsuit a few times in a futile attempt to make it feel a little looser, tried very hard to ignore the weird feeling of rubber directly against his fur, then turned around and surveyed himself from all angles. "Not a bad effect, though...I really LOOK like a comic book superhero now. The only thing left is footwear." He kicked off what was left of his own smouldering socks and shoes and tried on the matching yellow boots that came with the radiation suit. To to his annoyance, they didn't fit--but a pair of boots from another suit, a blue-green one, did. _Geez, who designed these things, a psychedelic clown?_ he wondered. He looked down at himself again. "No, wait, it still needs something else..."  
On a whim, he pulled a contrasting dark blue belt off yet another of the strange suits and fastened around his waist. _Perfect!_ he thought, looking at the full outfit.  
"Now, I just need to find some formal-looking clothes to wear over this so I can be incognito at the prom until such time as I might be needed. And then, watch out, evildoers!" he gestured dramatically "GIGAWATT will be there!"  
He stopped, and put his hand down. "No, that's too powerful. Sounds like I'm being arrogant--a billion watts, indeed. Maybe I should tone it down a notch..."  
Elmo wandered out into the corridor, heading for where he could vaguely remember the drama classroom was (the longer he was in the school, the more he could remember about its layout--although he had no emotional connection to the knowledge) but the sound of voices came from around a corner. With a yipe, he zapped open a locker and leapt inside it, hoping the noise would go unnoticed.  
"Oh, this is going to be the BEST prom ever, Hamm!" giggled Prina Lott, as she came sweeping by in a blue sequinned gown, her hair piled high atop her head. "You'll see! Nothing can spoil this special night!" Then she paused, and looked around, confused. "Wait a minute...why are all the lights off?"  
"Well, at least it's summer, so the sun hasn't set yet..." said Hamm, shrugging. Thinking nothing more of it, the two continued on their way to the auditorium.  
Elmo waited she and the tuxedo-clad Hamm String turned the corner out of sight and cautiously opened the locker. _No, nothing WILL spoil this night...if MEGAWATT has anything to say about it!_ He paused again. _Megawatt..is that quite right? Oh, who cares, people are already arriving for the prom--if I want to be there to save everybody but keep from blowing my cover until the right moment, I have to find something normal to wear over this get-up, FAST!_  
Then he became suddenly, extremely aware of the fact that it was, indeed, summer...and the fact that the air conditioning of the school was also powered by electricity. "Oh, MAN!" Elmo leaned against the nearest wall, wiping sweat off his forehead. He tugged at the collar of the jumpsuit, trying desperately to fan some air into it, but this didn't help much...as materials went, rubber wasn't exactly known for "breathing" very well. "WHY couldn't I have suddenly turned into an electrically-powered freak in January? Or while visiting the North Pole...?"  
Staggering a bit, he set off on his way towards the drama classroom again.  
  
"You know, Megsy, I like fashion-talk as much as anybody else," said Quackerjack, kicking back on the couch and handing one of the last two doughnuts to Gosalyn (taking the very last for himself), "but we KNOW you've got this costume, we see you wear it all the time. Get to the good part!"  
"YEAH!" chorused Liquidator, Bushroot, and Gosalyn.  
"Hey, I'm just trying to establish how I built my new self from the ground up!" protested Megavolt, but he was secretly flattered by the way they had gotten so into his old story. _They're just DYING to know what happenes next..._ he thought to himself, smiling slightly. _Heh...maybe I should try going into writing professionally. I bet I could do a pretty decent comic book, for example..._  
"Okay. Flash forward to about two hours later. I'd found a somewhat old-fashioned, but not too bad, formal suit in the drama classroom's costuming supplies, and had gone to the prom. My rubber outfit was covered uup, except for the gloves. However, everybody was used to Elmo Sputterspark being weird, so nobody thought much of them.  
"They were also unaware of the fact that the only reason the auditorium HAD electricity for the lights and the band members' equipment, that night, was because I had gone to the school's fuse-box and given it a jolt that would last a few hours at least. The fuses weren't actually damaged, you see, just drained. After all, that huge surge of energy had gone OUT of the school's cables, into ME. What alarmed me was how EASY it had been to power the school back up, even for a short time...I had more trouble with holding back than USING my power. It's lucky I didn't melt the fusebox...  
"Anyway. I was hanging out by the punchbowl, getting pretty darn bored. For the sake of looking as if I was there for the prom itself like anybody else, I asked girls to dance a few times--but wasn't terribly surprised when they all turned me down. A lot of people were laughing at my new hairstyle, too. But just as I was beginning to think that nothing was going to happen and I could safely go home..."  
  



	3. Chapter Three: Ballroom Blitz!

  
  


**"Reversed Polarity"**   
  
A "Darkwing Duck" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!)   
  
**Chapter Three: "Ballroom Blitz!"**   
  


There was an explosion from outside and the double-doors were blasted violently open. Silhouetted against smoke whose edges glowed red from the heat of the fire behind it stood a short duck man in a yellow, red, and black outfit, including a black mask and cape. He was holding a chainsaw in one hand and a grenade in the other. "I...AM...NEGADUCK!!" he announced, in a dramatic roar.  
"Hey, that's our name, man!" protested one of the members of the (rather bad) band that was playing that night.  
Negaduck lunged across the floor towards the band, took out one of the guns he'd been carrying under his cape, and shoved the barrel straight up against the lead guitarist's nose. "Want to make something of it?" he growled.  
"Er, no! No, that's fine! You can have the name!" said the guitarist, frightened out of his wits. "We never liked that name much anyway, right guys?" he glanced behind to look at the other band members. They all nodded vigorously.  
"Good..." purred Negaduck, and turned back around to face the rest of the room. "LISTEN UP, ALL YOU KNOBS!" he roared, and fired off a shot from the gun into the ceiling. "I have come here to wreak havoc and chew bubble gum--" he paused for effect, then continued on in a low snarl, "and I'm all out of bubble gum."  
This didn't quite have the effect he'd wanted--instead of running around and screaming, the students just stood there and stared at him as if he had grown a second head.  
"So buy some more," came an unidentified voice from the back of the room. A small ripple of giggles spread across the crowd.  
"Who's the geek?" said Maria Swandive, jerking her thumb at the strange new arrival.  
"Yeah, I mean, a YELLOW tuxedo? With a red hat? And a FEATHER in it? Oh, come on, please! Who does he think he's impressing, with that ridiculous get-up?" said Hamm String, chuckling.  
"Man, he's worse than Drake the Dweeb!" snorted Moe Bernard as he lounged against the wall, looking like a lumpy sack of potatoes in his ill-fitting suit.  
"AARRRRRGGGHHHH!! I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!! You have mocked me for the very last time! Taste the wrath of NEGADUCK!!" and he tossed a grenade into the crowd.  
Screams sounded throughout the room and people dove for cover as they finally realised he was serious. "Let's get out of here!" shrieked Maria, running for the exit. As one, the prom-goers tried to follow her--but Negaduck got there first and blocked the door. He revved up the engine on his chainsaw with a very deliberate motion. Once. "Oh, don't leave..." he said in a fake "sad" tone, and took a step forward. Maria suddenly wished she wasn't at the front of the crowd." Twice. "We wouldn't want you to miss the FUN..." Three times. "After all, THE PARTY'S JUST STARTED! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!" The psychopathic duck leapt into the crowd, swinging the chainsaw from side to side with great glee. Everybody tried desperately to get out of the way. Well, except for one--Terrence Hawkeye, the yearbook photographer, whipped out his camera and took shot after shot. After all, proms like THIS certainly didn't happen every year...  
Moe hid under the hors d'oeuvres table, thinking that would shelter him, but a moment later, with a loud buzzing sound, the table was cleaved in half. "EEP!" The huge bully hit a note that, until now, he was not aware he could hit, and dove to the side just in time, as the chainsaw bit heavily into the wooden floor where he had been crouching.  
_This is it!_ thought Elmo, as he stared around at the chaos. _My chance to use my new powers for good! To really BE a superhero!_ He first made certain nobody was looking at him--not much chance of that, everybody understandably had OTHER things on their mind right now besides Elmo Sputterspark, the Science Freak--and leapt backstage, where he quickly shucked off his formal clothes, put on the protective goggles that he had hidden in a pocket, and stood there in his brightly-coloured rubber garb. _You know, this combination of yellow and blue isn't that bad--it actually goes with my powers. Lightning colours. Neat._ he thought to himself, and then looked back out from behind the curtains as a loud CRASH echoed through the room--Negaduck had knocked over another table, spilling the punch-bowl all over the floor. _But before I can go out there, I GOTTA settle on a superhero name...!_ There were screams from all around as Negaduck hurled another grenade, knocking down a good chunk of wall this time. _FAST!_  
"Come on, guys, let's make this an 'extra-special night to REMEMBER...'" sneered Negaduck, chasing after the nearest person--which happened to be Hamm String--with his chainsaw. The football player found himself pinned against a wall with nowhere else to go. He cringed, waiting for the bloody end...but suddenly, from atop a ladder near one of the decorative banners, came a mysterious voice.  
"I am the hero that LIGHTS up the night!" announced the strange yellow-clad person, zapping a bolt into the air to illustrate his point. _Oh, geez_ thought Elmo to himself, _I guess the electrocution did something to my vocal chords, too. When did my voice get so cracked and raspy? I sound more like a LOONEY than a hero!_  
Fighting back his embarrassment, he continued on. "I am the dynamo that powers the forces of goodness!" Negaduck lowered his chainsaw and turned around to look at this new interruption, disgustedly. "I...am...MEGAVOLT!!" And with that, Megavolt leapt down off the ladder, shooting bolts of electricity at the heavily-armed duck.  
"EAT GRENADE, MEGADOLT!" yelled Negaduck, hurling another grenade at the yellow-clad rat.  
Megavolt dodged out of the way--not quite fast enough, however. A piece of shrapnel caught him in the leg and he limped, wincing with pain. But he gritted his teeth and sent another bolt at Negaduck. This time the bolt caught the psychopath square in the chest, lifted him off the ground, and held him there, about ten feet above the floor. The sound of sizzling feathers filled the air--making Megavolt cringe. _I don't want to use these powers against PEOPLE! But at the moment, I have no choice..._  
"Yeah, that's it! Way to go, Megavolt!" cried Hamm String, punching the air enthusastically. What with the strange costume, the new hairstyle, and the tinted goggles over his eyes, it seemed nobody there could recognise the newcomer as Elmo Sputterspark. "Give 'em heck!"  
"HAMM!" said Prina Lott through clenched teeth, as she elbowed her boyfriend in the ribs. "Let's get OUT of here, while the new guy is distracting Negaduck!"  
"Aww, but this Megavolt guy is so COOL! Just like a real-life Captain Electron! I wanna stay and watch...!" whined Hamm, but Prina grabbed his arm and steered him out the door. The others followed close behind (Terrence stopping to take one more picture of the dramatic tableau) and soon the room was empty of all but the two combatants.  
Megavolt continued to hold Negaduck in the air, but then thought to himself, _NOW what?! I can't just hold him here all NIGHT..._ Even using special powers rather than physical strength, this was more tiring than it looked. Wearily, Megavolt took a moment to wipe the sweat off his forehead--thereby breaking his concentration for a second, and dropping Negaduck to the floor.  
His opponent was dazed, dizzy, and more than a bit singed--but quite definitely still swinging. Negaduck revved up the chainsaw again and lunged towards the superhero. "Take THIS, you short-circuiting buffoon!" He climbed over the wreckage of a table towards Megavolt--taking the most direct route, completely ignoring whatever else was in his way. "You may have incredible powers, but let's see them protect you from THIS!"  
In response, Megavolt zapped the metal chainsaw. Negaduck dropped it--but not before the electricity slithered in glowing lines down to the handle. "Ya-ha!" he gasped, shaking his hands, which were tingling painfully and for a few moments, he couldn't flex them. He began to feel alarmed. _What if I CAN'T win..?_ thought the deranged young duck to himself. _Heck, why did I even try this? What made me think I had to blow up the school? But I've already done enough to give myself a criminal record...might as well make sure I DESERVE it!_ Aloud, he said, "I've got a lot more weapons where THAT came from!" and tossed another grenade at Megavolt.  
Megavolt dodged out of the way of the grenade--they were destructive, but fortunately had a pretty small blast-radius. He prepared to zap again, but looked up as he heard a loud bang--Negaduck had shot the chain holding up the enourmous disco-ball at roughly the same time he threw the grenade! In his effort to dodge away from both threats at the same time, Megavolt didn't look very closely at WHERE he was dodging--and landed face-first in the spill from the punch bowl.  
"YAAAAAAAAA!!!!" he screamed, as his remaining power--which was a lot--shorted out in a spectacular fireworks display. It was both the worst and strangest pain he had ever experienced--as if part of his very life-force had been ripped from his body and exploded into a million pieces. He was unable to do anything for a moment except lie there, gasping. _Well, this will certainly make taking showers more interesting from now on..._ he thought muzzily.  
Negaduck ambled over to the weakened rat, a big grin spreading across his face, quite deliberately going at a slow pace so as to prolong the moment. "Oooh, I'm going to ENJOY this...." he purred.  
Megavolt looked up from his spot on the floor. "I haven't...given up...yet..." he panted, dragging himself into a sitting position. "Evil shall...never...win..." and he pointed his finger at Negaduck.  
There was a tiny fizzle, and nothing else.  
Negaduck laughed--a low, dangerous laugh. "What's the matter, freak?" he taunted. "Did that juice make you lose all YOUR" and he paused to laugh at his own pun "'juice'? Have your batteries gone dead?" He kneeled down and leaned forwards, so that he was bill-to-muzzle with Megavolt. "Did the widdle superhero woose all hims widdle powers? Awww, poor baby..." He raised a gun, pointed it directly at Megavolt's chest, drew the safety back...and then lowered it.  
"No..." he decided, putting the gun away. "What's the point of defeating your enemy if you can't rub it in their face...?" He pulled out something new from beneath his cape--a bundle of dynamite sticks, hooked to a small alarm clock with a couple of wires. "You see this? You know what this is?" he asked rhetorically.  
"A bomb." said Megavolt in a flat tone.  
"And do you know what I'm going to DO with this bomb?" said Negaduck, standing up and holding the bomb high over his head in a dramatic pose.  
"Destroy St. Canard High." said Megavolt in the same tone.  
"That's right," growled Negaduck, "but don't step on my lines." He cleared his throat and continued. "Yes, ladies and gentle-mutants of the audience," he looked around the room, "I'm going to destroy the school and all of you with it...and where did everyone go?"  
"They left while we were fighting." responded Megavolt, trying desperately to summon up more power from somewhere...a hidden reserve...anything. It was a lost cause--the charge that huge shock earlier had given him was gone. In fact, his normal energy seemed to be drained, too--he was so woozy it was taking all his effort just to sit upright.  
"GRRRRR! I HATE WHEN THIS HAPPENS!" snarled Negaduck, completely ignoring the fact that this was the first time this had happened. "Okay, fine! I'm still going to blow up St. Canard High School...and YOU, at least, will have a front-row seat! HAHAHAHAHAA!!" With that, he set the fuse on the bomb for five minutes and tossed it into the middle of the room.  
"Oh, but before I forget..." he tossed a grenade at the floor near Megavolt. "THIS is for stepping on my line," he tossed another one, "THIS is for helping everybody else escape, and THIS" he tossed a third, "is just because I HATE YOUR STUPID HAIRSTYLE!!" And with that, the section of floor underneath the yellow-clad rat fell away entirely, dumping him into the basement. There was a series of clangs, plinks, plonks, and thuds as he landed in a pile of band instruments. Megavolt hit his head rather hard on the basement floor, and fell unconscious.  
Laughing, Negaduck left.  
And the school blew up.  
  
"Ah, great old times," said the current-day Negaduck, sighing happily. "Such happy memories of chaos and destruction... It'll be so nice to see all my old friends again, at the reunion...and this time, we'll do it RIGHT!" He picked out his favourite weapons and hid them in his clothes. "Now, to head for the bakery. We wouldn't want them to start the party without ME, would we?" Chuckling evilly, he strode out the door.  
  
"The school BLEW UP with you still inside?" said Gos, her eyes wide, as she sat next to Megavolt, who had finally decided to sit on the couch. "How did you survive?"  
"Yeah, how did you?" asked Bushroot. The others nodded--they wanted to know, too.  
"Well, in a way, Negaduck accidentally helped me by throwing me into the basement..." began the older Megavolt.  
  
Muffled voices filtered down to Megavolt through the pile of rubble he was half-buried under, and he realised, with amazement, that he had somehow survived TWO disasters in one day. _The extra floor between myself and the explosion must've shielded me..._  
"So, this is the scene of the battle?" said an unfamiliar voice in an awed tone. "Wow. Okay--you say this crazy guy calling himself 'Negaduck' showed up with a bunch of weaponry--" the sound of footsteps crunching on fallen plaster came from overhead "--and this strange guy with mutant lightning powers appeared out of nowhere to fight him?"  
"Yessir, Mr. Lockjaw, sir," said a voice which Megavolt was able to place after a moment..._Oh, yeah, that's Terrence Hawkeye, the yearbook photographer. Wait, how come I can remember his name and not my own...?_  
"Fascinating!" said cub reporter Tom Lockjaw, and Megavolt could faintly hear a scratching sound that must have been him scribbling in a notebook. "I can see the headline now--'Heroic Mutant Saves St. Canard High!' This story might even be my big break--the one that helps me get into TV news!" He scribbled even faster.  
"Um, well, actually, Mr. Lockjaw, he, erm...didn't save the school. As you can see." Terrence paused, and Megavolt assumed he must have been gesturing at the wreckage.  
"Oh, well, that doesn't matter!" said Lockjaw, continuing to scribble. "The point is, he saved the student's lives! Homicidal maniacs...daring heroics...real-life superpowers...this is KILLER material! Any chance I could interview this 'Megavolt' person?"  
"Nobody knows where he is..." said Terrence, shrugging. "The last anybody saw of him, he was still fighting Negaduck. Then there was that explosion...as far as anybody knows, they're both dead."  
_I'm not!_ thought Megavolt, desperately trying make his way out of the caved-in basement..._I'm right here!_ He tugged at one of the larger pieces that was on top of his legs...and had to give up after a moment, panting. It was clear that he wouldn't be able to get loose any time soon--not in his current condition, anyway. So he tried another idea.  
"HELP! GET ME OUT OF HERE!"  
Unfortunately, he didn't have enough strength to yell very loud, either, and it came out as a quiet gasp.  
"Did you hear something?" questioned Terrence, cocking his head to one side.  
"Eh, just a piece of wreckage settling." Lockjaw dismissed it and went back to his scribbling. "Do you have a description of him or Negaduck for my story, perchance?"  
"I can do better than that," said Terrence, and there was another bit of silence as he evidently rummaged inside his pockets.  
"Perfect!" Lockjaw grinned as he grabbed the pictures Terrence handed to him. "These are great. You're rather talented, ya know." He clapped Terrence on the shoulder. "May I have your permission to use these for my story?"  
"Sure, if you give me credit..." and their voices faded away as they left the room.  
  
Somewhere across town, a figure darted from lamp-post to lamp-post, trying not to be seen. He pulled his black cape as tightly as he could around his yellow tuxedo jacket, knowing how easily that bright colour would show up against the darkness. _I've got to find a place to hide out, lay low,_ thought Negaduck. _Maybe I can--_  
His train of thought was cut off by a little sound to his right. The teenaged duck turned to see a small, ragged grey puppy. It stared soulfully at him. _Oh, he looks just like the dog I used to have as a kid..._ thought Negaduck. "Here boy! Come here!" he called. The dog happily trotted over and licked his hand. He petted it on the head, smiling.  
Then the juvenille gangster realised something. _No, wait, I can't go around petting little puppy dogs if I'm going to be a vicious criminal. Negaduck wouldn't like cute things._ He took his hand away, then bent down towards the dog's face, bared his teeth, and growled at it. "Get outta here, ya mangy mutt!"  
Whimpering, the dog ran off.  
_Now, where am I going to go, exactly...?_ thought Negaduck, as he continued to skulk down the streets. _If I'm going to continue on with my life of crime, I'll need some more weaponry, and for that, I'll need some money to get it--also, money for food, and a place to stay._ He headed towards the "bad part of town"--or rather, the WORSE part--and continued to mull things over as he went along. _Hmmm. I think one of my weapons-dealer buddies can probably put me up in his place. Once I remind him of, ahem, certain nuggets of information I know about him, he should be all TOO happy to oblige. That'll take care of the housing thing for a bit. As for the money...I'll..._  
Negaduck looked up at the building across the street from where he was currently standing. "St. Canard 5th National Bank" read the sign above the doorway.  
_Heh. Why not go with the classics?_ he smirked. _Yes, that's it, I'll rob a bank. And I'll ask him to be my partner--no,_ he stood up straighter. _I'll ORDER him to come along, whether he likes it or not! If I'm going to be a criminal mastermind..._ and here he quite deliberately threw his cloak back and started striding down the streets as if he owned them rather than, _I'd better start ACTING like one!_  
He paused. _Of course, it would be much EASIER to just go get the rest of the arsenal that I already have--the one in the basement at home...but...what if my mom recognises me?_  
"What if she DOES?" Negaduck said to himself, aloud, pausing underneath a burned-out street-light. "No, wait...what if I don't show up there as Negaduck at all? I can take this costume off, hide it in a trash can, and go back to my normal life! Negaduck would be this mysterious character who showed up out of nowhere and disappeared the same way, an unsolved mystery. I could just go back to being Drake Mallard again, and nobody would be any the wiser..." Of their own accord, his hands reached up for the knot at the back of his mask.  
_And then what?_ countered the more cynical part of his brain. _Go back to a life of what, exactly? Parents who nag at you and call you a lazy bum all the time? Your grades are barely good enough to graduate, so you'll never get a scholarship for a GOOD college--and your family isn't rich enough to send you to a good one at normal tuition prices. The best you can hope for is a lowly associates degree from some community-college type place, which will leave you able to get nothing but menial jobs such as flipping burgers or sweeping floors--for the rest of your life. Do you really want THAT? Of course you don't!_  
Then his ego chimed in with: _You know you're smarter than that! You know you're BETTER than that! You deserve a life of ease and luxury, and if you can't get it by LEGAL means, well..._  
Negaduck kept his hands where they were...but tightened the knot on his mask, rather than loosening it.  
"As of this night," he murmured, staring into the darkness ahead, "Drake Mallard is dead. I..AM...Negaduck."  
  
Megavolt finally managed to struggle free. He had no idea how long he'd been out, but it was now jet black outside. Was it the same night? The next night? There was no way to tell. Dizzily, the dazed new superhero staggered out into the night, heading for...wait, where was home again? He still couldn't remember his own name!  
"I...I can't live among normal people anymore," he murmured to himself, remembering how he tended to set things on fire or electrocute them when he wasn't wearing rubber. "I...I'd hurt them. I have to...find someplace...nobody else will want to go..."  
Megavolt stumbled down the streets, not heading anywhere in particular, ignoring the stares of the few other people who were out this late. He did make quite a sight--the colourful costume, the huge hairdo, the cuts and tears in the outfit from his battle, the plaster dust in his hair, and the huge red smear all over everything from the punch. But he didn't care. He just had to find somewhere to go...somewhere away from Negaduck...where he could recover, regroup, and recharge.  
_I don't know what I was thinking with that stupid speech I made before attacking,_ he thought, looking back on the prom night, ruefully. _That kind of entrance is just not me... What made me think I could be a hero anyway? Look how I messed up my very first battle--I was trying to save the school, and I completely failed! I don't think I'm cut out for this..._  
Something broke inside the young mutant, as the events of the last day finally got to be too much for him. He fell to his knees in the street and cried.  
"You all right, kid?" came a voice above him. Megavolt looked up through tear-streaked goggles to see an old man in raggedy clothes staring down with concern. From the look of him, he was one of the city's many, many homeless people. St. Canard's government was so controlled by the organised crime rackets that they didn't have much money to spend on helping out the poor, or any other civic improvement projects either--most of the city's yearly budget went towards protection money. The old man held out his hand.  
"I...I'll be fine..." gulped Megavolt, taking the hand and struggling to his feet.  
The man held an open packet of cigarrettes towards him. "I got a light, too, if you want. A good smoke always does wonders to calm me down."  
"No, thank you," said Megavolt politely, waving the packet away. "I don't smoke. But thank you for thinking about me." He started to walk down the street again.  
"Well, I'll be right here if you change your mind!" the old man called back. "Hope things get better, sonny!"  
Megavolt continued to wander, but something the man had said was nagging at his brain. _"A light", he said..._ thought the young rat, as he turned onto a side-street. _Light...That's IT!_ He snapped his fingers. _The abandoned lighthouse on Beeker's Point! Nobody'll bother me there...and it should be liveable--after all, the lighthouse keepers used to live there themselves..._  
Having made his decision, he headed for the lighthouse...and the beginning of his lonely new life.  
  
A few days later, as Megavolt stood looking out the window at the bay, a piece of paper came floating up into the opposite window. Hearing the rustling from behind him, he turned around and rushed over to grab the paper before it could fly away again. It was a page from the _St. Canard Gazette_. He stared at it as he saw something familiar...his own face!  
"Heroic Mutant Saves Students from Maniac!" he read aloud, and went on to read the rest of the article. It was dated from a couple of days ago. "St. Canard High was blown up last night, during the school's senior prom. The students did indeed have a night to remember, although not the memories they WANTED to take home with them, as a crazed young man calling himself 'Negaduck' showed up with a huge arsenal of weapons and proceeded to start ripping the place apart. However, the students might never have been able to remember anything again, had it not been for--" and here Megavolt gave a little smile "--another strange new character, this one a young rodent man calling himself 'Megavolt'. Despite his odd appearance he turned out to be a real hero, as he used amazing electrical powers to distract Negaduck long enough for the other students to escape."  
"I wasn't trying for that at the time, I was just trying to stop Negaduck," said Megavolt aloud, but continued reading.  
"Nobody knows how the fight went after that, but a few pictures from the beginning of it were taken by Terrence Hawkeye (pictures above), the school's yearbook photographer, who had his camera with him at the time. Most of the students at the prom have since been accounted for, except for two--Drake Mallard, and Elmo Sputterspark, both age 17." (The article then showed their yearbook pictures, which had been taken a little earlier in the year). "If any of our readers have seen either of these two young men, please contact the police immediately. Negaduck and Megavolt have both been missing since the explosion as well. It is unknown whether either of them survived the blast."  
_We both did..._ thought Megavolt, _I mean, all "four" of us did--but we're lying low at the moment._  
Megavolt looked at the picture of Elmo Sputterspark again, more carefully this time. _Wait, that guy looks familiar...is that...it can't be...that's ME!!_ He rubbed his eyes with his gloved hands to make sure he was seeing right, and looked again. _It IS me! That's my real name! Elmo Sputterspark!  
But..._ he continued sadly, putting the newspaper page down, _I might as well continue being Megavolt. After all, I can hardly live Elmo Sputterspark's life anymore..._  
But he kept the paper.  
And from then on, whenever he was feeling especially down, he would pull the article out, read it again, and smile.  
...It also came in handy whenever he wanted to remember his real name.  
  
"And that's the story," concluded Megavolt. "That's how the school got destroyed, how I got the way I am today, and also, how Negaduck got started."  
"If you know Negaduck is actually Drake Mallard, shouldn't you tell somebody?" asked Quackerjack.  
"To what point?" shrugged Megavolt. "It doesn't matter who Negaduck WAS. What matters is who he IS--the despotic, manically violent dictator of St. Canard. I don't think anybody'll CARE about his real name, now..."  
"Well, the important thing now is to go to that reunion and make sure he doesn't try to blow up Duckburg High as well." burbled the Liquidator, making a dramatic gesture with a hand-shaped pseudopod of water held high.  
"Yeah." said Megavolt, standing up. "Yeah! That's it! I'll face him again, and THIS time...I'll do it RIGHT!"  
"You mean, WE'LL do it right." said Bushroot, coming forward to stand with his arm around Megavolt's shoulder. "Because we're going with you."  
"That's right!" said Quackerjack, coming forward to put his arm around Megavolt's other shoulder. "This time, he'll have to face the entire Friendly Four!"  
"Awww, you guys..."  
"Can I come too?" asked Gosalyn, interested.  
"No, it'll be too dangerous for you, I'm afraid." said Bushroot, bending down to look her in the eye. "You just stay here, okay, pumpkin? And since you're such a good girl, you can watch a movie on cable, if you want, and eat any snacks you like."  
"Oh...kay..." said Gosalyn, sounding sad.  
The Four exchanged glances.  
"Oh, heck, let her come." said the Liquidator. "I'm sure she won't be a problem."  
  
"Hey, look, it's Megavolt again!" crowed a familiar voice. Megavolt looked up to see Hamm String and his wife, Prina Lott (who had kept her maiden name). Despite being 20 years older, they hadn't changed much.  
"Have you come here to thwart evil again, Megavolt?" asked Prina, fascinated. "It's been FOREVER since I saw you in action that one time."  
"You got it!" said Megavolt, with more self-assurance than he actually felt. _I hope I do better than LAST time_, he thought sadly. Darkwing Duck had done much to boost the confidence of the Friendly Four during his brief visit to their version of St. Canard, but Megavolt had thought of himself as a failure for almost 20 years now and old habits were hard to break.  
"And WE'LL be here to fight Negaduck right alongside him!" said the Liquidator, coming forwards to stand near Megavolt--but not putting his arm around the rat's shoulder, as obviously that would be a bad idea.  
"Oooh, this oughta be good!" squeaked Maria Swandive.  
  
Negaduck strolled down the street towards the "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice" bakery. _This is going to be SWEET,_ he thought maliciously, licking his chops at the thought of the carnage to come _and I DON'T mean the giant birthday cake I'm about to leap into!_ He opened the door of the bakery with a loud slam, causing the little bell on top to fall off and clang on the floor.  
"Can I help you, si--NEGADUCK!!" quavered the balding duck behind the counter, and leapt behind it. "Er...take whatever you want...compliments of the house!" Negaduck ignored him and headed for the back room.  
_Where is that cake with the portal to the Negaverse...?_ he thought, looking around the place. _It's gotta be here some--_ "AACCK!!" he yelled, furious.  
The platform where the cake used to be was still there..but the cake itself was nowhere in sight. _Of course...I remember now... When that goody two-shoes Darkwing Duck came through here, he pulled the Universal Plug--closing the gateway! I'm lucky I managed to make it back here, instead of being lost forever in oblivion!_ "DARKWING, YOU...YOU...YOU!!!!" he raged, shaking his fists at the heavens. "A perfect chance for destruction, and YOU had to ruin it!"  
_Well, the clerk DID say I could have anything I want._ Negaduck smiled, as he realised the day didn't have to be a total loss... He reached into the pocket of his yellow blazer for one of his favourite grenades. _And what I want...is to turn this place into a pile of FIERY ASH!_  
The clerk barely managed to run out into the street before the roof fell in.  
  
"Oh, geez, it's been SIX HOURS and he still hasn't come," groaned Megavolt, who was getting very tired of standing in his Official Vigilant Hero position. Everybody else was tired too, most of the other guests had gone home, and the band had run out of songs to play and were now standing around the punch-bowl. "I don't think he's gonna be here..."  
Bushroot picked up Gosalyn, who had fallen asleep on the stage long ago. "Yeah, I think you're right," he agreed.  
"I say we just finish up these hors d'ouevres and call it a night." said Quackerjack.  
  


  
  
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**Written (in one day, save revisions) by Tiffany J. Knox, April 1, 2004.**   
(No, that doesn't mean it's an April Fool's story, that just happens to be when I felt like writing it. By the way, what's WITH me and writing Darkwing fanfics all in one day, anyway? :P)  
  
**All rights reserved, yada yada yada. All characters in this story (except for Herman Spoonbill, Moe Bernard, Maria Swandive and Terrence Hawkeye) are (c) Disney or at least based off of characters that are (c) Disney. Any resemblance to any actual people in this story, living, dead, or undead (if you don't know which you are, ASK!) is purely coincidental, except for when it's not. Your own personal mileage may vary. Offer not valid in the state of Calisota. May contain nuts.**  
  
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_If, for some reason, you wish to read my long, rambly Author's Notes, copy and paste the following link into your browser's address bar (without the spaces):  
h t t p: / / www. geocities .com /keela_shanri / authorsnotes .h t m l  
...and have a nice daycycle, Friend Citizen._   
  



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